Reunited
by katelynnsmusings
Summary: Three months after the riot, Nicky finds herself transferred to a new prison and runs in to a familiar face.


After being pulled out of the pool, the next time that Nichols saw grass was as she was boarded on to a bus in the dead of the night, forced to sit next to a sketchy junky type person (probably meth, not that she could judge anyways) and a ginger who had to be in a face mask. Automatically deemed one of rebels in the riot from where she had hidden, Nicky and the others had gone from a dimly lit pool they didn't know existed the day before straight to max. She'd sworn that she would never go back there but there she was. For three months she could feel the life slowly drain out of her bones.

She's moving though and she doesn't know where or why. There's barely enough fight left in her though and she doesn't press the matter. Where was there to go from here, though? Litchfield had been split. Her family had been pulled in four different directions and now here she was, being forced to leave the remaining remnants of the people that had made up her home.

The next time Nicky feels anything other than the numbness is three days after she arrives in the new place, when a familiar figure appears in the distance while she's walking back to her unit. She thinks it must be a ghost at first, a remnant of her past haunting her, reminding her of who she missed the most and what she could never have. For a moment she feels hope, and then the guilt crashes down around her, something that she'd fought to keep back for several months.

She's real, though. The next day Nicky sees her again, all brown curls and brown eyes but now she's got a swell to her abdomen and her signature red lipstick is off of her face. She doesn't know what to do any more. Once upon she'd promised this girl, this beautiful, amazing, _crazy_ girl that she would be there forever but the thing is - she knows she would and she's a shell of who she once was. Nicky couldn't give Lorna what she needs any more, and that's for sure.

* * *

Apparently Nicky wasn't the only one to catch sight of her ex-flame, though, because the next day as she she's naked and wet under a shower that actually has some water pressure to it, a small voice comes up behind her.

Broken, vulnerable. Nicky recognizes the tone in an instant and she turns her head to make eye contact with the Italian. Nicky wants to break right then and there but there's pain in Lorna's eyes and she's gotta be the strong one. She's always gotta be the strong one.

"Hey, kid." She rinses the conditioner from her hair and shuts the water off, but she doesn't leave the stall just yet. There's a ratty curtain between her and the love of her life, that's it, and fuck she really hadn't been ready for this. "Long time no see."

When she steps out, Lorna's fully clothed but just as beautiful as she ever was naked. Nicky's dying to kiss her but she holds back, not just to avoid getting Lorna wet but for her own sanity. She can't go down that rabbit hole again. She had barely gotten out of it last time, and it would cause her nothing but trouble.

"I didn't think I'd see you again." Lorna's lower lip trembles as she says the words, her gaze never leaving Nicky's.

"Neither did I." She pushes the curtain aside and walks out in all her glory, grabbing her towel from the hook outside and running it through her tangles. They say nothing else. Not now. It's not the right time right now.

* * *

The right time comes later on that day, when Nicky's moved in to a unit and her bed is right across the hallway from a certain someone's. There was no avoiding each other now, though it was never about avoidance. Shock, guilt, worry - adjustment, but never avoidance.

"So welcome to my unit," Lorna says as Nicky sits perched on her bed, one leg pulled up towards her chest and the other out straight. Lorna's hair is wrapped up in a towel and Nicky gives her a nod.

"Yeah they moved me in just now. What luck." Her tone comes off as sarcastic but she's genuinely glad to see that she'll be close by.

"Well I'm just right there." Lorna points to the door on the other side of a narrow hallway. Here, unlike Litchfield or max, the living arrangements actually seemed decent. Two bunks to a room, six rooms to a unit with a small communal area in the middle and iron bars stopping them from leaving the unit. An actual chance at a bit of privacy (not that there were, y'know, locks or anything on the doors so it wasn't _really_ that private.) "I'll, uh, be around if you need anything. Anything at all."

"No-" she cuts Lorna off as the brunette is turning around. Nicky doesn't want space right now. She wants to feel less alone, know how Lorna's been, know how that baby she's growing was doing. She leans over and pats an open area on the end of her bed. Lorna's still got that broken look on her face that she'd seen earlier and fuck it was hard not to check in. "Stay a bit, it's been a while."

"Yeah, yeah it has." Lorna doesn't feel like the woman that Nicky used to know. Like herself, she comes off as drained, broken. "It's been a long time." Her hand falls to the bump of her abdomen, obviously visible now that she was advancing in her pregnancy. Her thumb strokes above her naval and she offers Nicky a smile that's less than genuine.

Nichols' heart breaks in that instant, and she extends her arms towards Lorna. Like clockwork the brunette shuffles over on the bed and falls in to them so that Nicky's holding on to her by the head of the bed.

"What's going on?" Lorna can't mistake the tone Nicky uses, because she can't deny that the blonde knows her better than she knows herself. She can't talk about it, though - talking about it makes it real and Lorna's done everything she could to avoid facing the reality of the last few months.

"What do you mean?" Lorna speaks like she has no clue what Nicky's getting at 'cause she can't stop repressing everything right now without becoming a mess. The cock of Nicky's eyebrows wears her down in an instant though, and suddenly it was like they'd never been apart at all. Her eyes well up with tears and an exaggerated frown forms on her lips. "I haven't heard from Vinnie since I got here, and I know he knows where I am. I'm half way through this pregnancy and I have no idea what's going to happen to my baby. His dad's gone, _again_. Just like that. He said he'd be there. I can't get in touch with my sister either. Or anyone. And I have no one, Nicky. No one."

In that moment, Nicky's heart breaks for Lorna all over again. She strokes her fingers through Lorna's brown curls as she purses her lips and swallows the ball that's forming in her throat. She knows, she _knows_ she's not in a position to be the strong one but she'll do it anyways because fuck, this girl is never going to suffer as long as she has any say in the matter. She has to think about what she's going to say.

"You have me, don't you?" She bends over and kisses the crown of Lorna's head as the brunette begins to cry. Lorna swallows and nods slightly several times as she adjusts so that she's looking up towards Nicky.

"I missed you." Lorna leaves out how she's felt nothing but worry for the last three months and wondering what had happened to Nicky made up a bigger part of it than she'd like to admit. She leaves out how alone she's felt, how desperate she's been to find someone who would give her the kind of unconditional, selfless love that Nicky had offered her from day one. She leaves out the fact that she's been a mess without her person here to tell her when she's being a whack job and needs to calm the fuck down.

"Well I'm here okay? I'm here, I'm real, and I swear to God, Lorna, you're going to be okay. We're going to be okay. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow but you're not alone and things will work out.


End file.
